Climate Now

In order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, we must (in addition to reducing emissions) capture carbon and permanently store it where it cannot be released, a process known as carbon sequestration.So, what is currently being done to advance carbon sequestration? What policy and economic levers need to be implemented to incentivize its wide-scale deployment?To answer these questions, Climate Now spoke with Dr. Julio Friedmann, Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA and previously the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Fossil Energy at the Department of Energy.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

What incentives are needed for airlines to adopt sustainable aviation fuel (#SAF) and decarbonize air travel? How does SAF get tested and approved for use in commercial aviation?Who are the players in this space now and how much SAF is already being used? Steve Csonka joins Climate Now to discuss this important new technology.Steve Csonka is the Executive Director of the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative (CAAFI), where he connects a coalition of airlines, aircraft manufacturers, energy producers, researchers, and U.S. government agencies to advance sustainable jet fuel for commercial use.Note: This podcast was recorded on April 13, 2021, and there have been a few updates since then. In addition to World Energy, Gevo, and Neste, Eni and Air BP are now also producing SAF, and Fulcrum completed construction of its waste-to-fuel facility in Nevada and will likely be producing fuel by the end of 2021.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

As the climate crisis worsens, more and more companies are committing to go "net-zero". Most of these commitments include the purchase of carbon offsets or investment in negative emissions projects, designed to offset the emissions resulting from companies' operations.The carbon offset market is in high demand due to this surge of net-zero pledges, but does the market actually work? How can companies be sure their dollars are removing carbon that otherwise wouldn't be removed from the atmosphere? And what are the risks of a market that doesn't uphold its promise of truly offsetting emissions?Dr. Mark Trexler of the Climatographers and Derik Broekhoff of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) joined Climate Now to discuss the carbon offset market, what's wrong with it, and what its future could be.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

Declining renewable energy costs have sparked a renewed interest in green hydrogen, which has the potential to decarbonize sectors that are harder to electrify. Because hydrogen doesn't occur by itself on Earth, it must be separated from other elements, such as oxygen in water. Electrolysis is the process of using electricity from renewable energy to extract hydrogen from water.Dr. Ben Wiley, Duke University Professor of Chemistry, joins Climate Now to explain hydrogen electrolysis, where it makes sense to integrate into the energy economy, and the technology he is helping develop to improve its productivity.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

How exactly are plants converted into liquid transportation fuel? And what obstacles does bioenergy need to overcome in order to displace fossil fuels in the US energy economy and abroad?Jerry Tuskan is the CEO of the Center for Bioenergy Innovation and Group Lead for Plant Systems Biology in the Biosciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he has been since 1990.He also holds a joint appointment at the Joint Genome Institute - a Department of Energy Office of Science user facility - where he helps lead the Plant Science Program.Dr. Tuskan joined Climate Now to help us understand the biomass to biofuel process and how the sector can expand to meet our net-zero emissions targets.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

Matthew Langholtz, expert in biomass availability, discusses the types of biomass for sustainable energy, policy adjustments for bioenergy competitiveness, and the role of bioenergy in transitioning from fossil fuels. Topics include biomass sources, wood pellet transportation efficiency, biomass waste utilization, and bioenergy with carbon capture for carbon sequestration.

Climate impact assessment models carry significant weight when developing mitigation and adaptation strategies. So, what climate models exist, and what factors do they include? What scenarios are they projecting, and what should we make of these projections?We had the opportunity to ask these questions to Dr. Joeri Rogelj, a lead author of the IPCC's forthcoming sixth assessment report. Dr. Rogelj is Director of Research and Lecturer in Climate Change and the Environment at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

National governments are best-suited to provide the bold, swift action required by the climate crisis through policy. But which policies, exactly, should be passed? What are the pros and cons of each, and which are already proven to be effective in other countries?In this episode, we talk with Danny Richter, Vice President of Government Affairs at Citizens' Climate Lobby, to discuss some of these questions, including what a price on carbon might look like in the United States.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

What are the possible paths and necessary steps to achieve net-zero emissions in the United States by 2050? Which energy sources could sufficiently decrease our reliance on natural gas and oil to meet that target? And how much will those new energy sources need to scale from where they are today?Dr. Eric Larson is a lead author of the Net-Zero America Report - a Princeton University research initiative that presents five possible pathways to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 - and Senior Research Engineer at Princeton's Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.In this episode, Dr. Larson takes Climate Now hosts James Lawler and Katherine Gorman through the various pathways to net-zero, including the technologies that could help us achieve it.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

According to the IPCC's 2018 report, carbon capture and storage - in addition to a significant reduction in emissions - will be necessary in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. But what is carbon capture, how does it work, and what is its potential? Dr. Howard Herzog, MIT Energy Initiative Senior Research Engineer, and a pioneer of carbon capture technology, joined Climate Now to help us understand carbon capture and storage and its role on our path to net-zero emissions.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.